Everything posted by Gumbercules

I'm having problems with excessive ogre hostility as well. Granted, I killed a few ogres outside of the Flames-that-Whisper caverns (one of them caught me by surprise while I was sneaking around), but I stealthed the entire inside of the caverns and managed to make a truce with the ogre matron. Unfortunately, that only seems to have affected the ogres on the upper level of the caverns. The ogres in both the lower levels and the Russetwood are still hostile. The matron said to see Morug about supplies and resting, but he attacks along with two others as soon as I leave the caverns! Another possible ogre aggression bug is with the pale elves who are pulling along an enslaved ogre in the eastern section of the Russetwood. I've reloaded this encounter several times to see all the options and I'm not sure if the ogre is supposed to be hostile to my party regardless of what I choose. As far as I can tell, the only difference is whether he fights with or against the pale elves. I'm not sure what the Might check is for if you decide to punch an elf, since either failing or passing the check has resulted in a three-way ogre vs elves vs party battle. Additionally, when I went back to retry this fight last night to make this post, the elf-punch Might check no longer recognized any Might buffs from food or equipment. This isn't the first time this has happened in the expansion either. I don't remember the details, but I know there were other instances where dialogue/scripted interaction stat checks didn't properly take buffs into consideration. Here are saves from right before I talk to the ogre matron (when all ogres should be and are hostile), right after I make the truce (when they should all be friendly but many aren't), and from before I've even set foot in the Russetwood:
https://www.sendspace.com/file/eyvp0b

Posts like this are why I wish Obsidian had remained 100% behind their original "EVERY CLASS USES SOUL MAGIC!!!!!XTREME!!!!!" idea instead of retreating to the current "Well, all classes kind of use soul magic at least a little, unless you'd throw a tantrum at that, in which case sometimes maybe they don't I guess?" position, because Might governing physical and magical damage would make perfect sense if even Fighters used soul magic to hit people harder.

Great work, Sensuki and Matt516! Both of you have been providing useful information and suggestions throughout the beta, but this thread goes above and beyond.
Some quick *~gut feels~* thoughts on the original proposal and Josh Sawyer's suggestions:
Original Sensuki/Matt516 Proposal: I like it! As long as the math is accurate and you haven't missed anything, I would be satisfied if those were the final attributes. I like how everything remains elegant and simple while still mostly making sense, and the 2-2-2 attribute function split feels right as well.
Original Josh Sawyer/Obsidian Counter-proposal: It's great that you guys were heading in the same direction as Sensuki and Matt, but pretty much every way in which the suggestions differ feels worse. In particular, having Resolve affect healing received seems like it would be terrible. From a character-building standpoint, no one's going to think, "I want to build a character who responds to medicine more effectively!" Also having an attribute be that passive and dependent on other characters seems bad. Furthermore, I like that Might currently makes sense for Priests and other support-heavy classes, so I object to removing healing from it.
The 10-as-baseline for attributes with penalties for going below is an idea which I support, however.
Later Josh Sawyer Suggestions: These have mostly been better, although I still really like the original Sensuki/Matt516 idea. Having AOE increases be foe-only seems like a good idea as long as descriptions and UI make it clear what is happening. The lore justification makes perfect sense to me.
Once again, terrific thread!

Looks really good overall, if a bit simplistic probably due to being the very beginning of the game. But at least it seems like the hand-holding tutorial portion of the game will be quite fast-paced, so that's good. I really liked the varied dialogue options.
Some specific thoughts, questions and critiques:
In character creation, I didn't notice any mention of the racial bonuses, but maybe that hasn't been implemented yet. Also, I think it would be good to just have more gameplay-relevant information at that point in addition to the lore, for example how big an effect each point of an attribute has.
I understand that it's a work in progress, but I hope there's a lot more attention to presentation in the final version of the character creation screen. Once you get to the main game, everything ties together nicely, but due to some flaws and quirks the character creation screen gives a cheaper, clunkier first impression. Part of it is the zoomed in view of the character model, which looks worse than when it's zoomed out during gameplay and probably can't be helped. But there are other things that can be fixed, like how when you switch from Meadow to Ocean human, the default option is a rather unnatural looking dark skin + pale straight hair combo. That's fine as an option, but as the default it just makes the Ocean human option seem like a lazy palette-swap.
Related to the last point, I hope there end up being appropriate matching portrait options for all or most expected character appearance options. You probably can't make enough portraits, even if some are just minor variations, to cover every single permutation, but most of the ones that you expect people to choose should be covered.
Lore representation question: some of the Glanfathan enemies seemed like big, bulky humans. I thought they were supposed to all/mostly be elves and orlans?
Other lore representation question: how come selecting an Ixamitl barbarian gives you a fellow with fairly sophisticated-looking armor/clothing while selecting an Aedyran barbarian gives you a guy in rags? Aren't both nations supposed to be at around the same tech level?
Maybe I just missed it and it'll be clearer in game, but I didn't see any particular visual feedback for engagement and disengagement attacks. Maybe it ends up feeling intuitive when you're actually playing, but it surprised me that engagement didn't feel like a big deal in the videos.

The new screenshots look beautiful.
The two things stood out as possible causes for concern:
The animations were described as disappointing. Hopefully they aren't finished and will continue to improve until the game releases.
The UI was described as non-skeumorphic, modern, and minimalist. If I recall correctly there will be an option to choose which type of interface to use, so it's possible that Obsidian just decided that the modern option would go over better with the press.

Good to see that everything seems to be coming along nicely.
My only criticism of what was shown today is that the water spray in the Anslog's Compass video looks too slow, wispy, and ethereal, almost like it's mist or smoke and not a spray of liquid water. Hopefully you can get it to look better, but if not it's not too big a deal.

I looked through the previous updates and there is a screenshot of adra standing stones in Update 65 that looks different from what's in the latest screenshot (it's more pearlescent) so I may be wrong, or there may be multiple types of adra, or they decided to change how it looks. The new stuff to me looks crystalline, with a yellow glow from some off-screen light source, and it looks like whatever is in the Pillars of Eternity logo, or in the Update 77 screenshot.

Great update! Everything definitely seems to fit together much better than before, and it'll look even better once the 2D details are painted on. The dynamic cloth at the end also looks really good. Do hoods always stay up, or can they be raised and lowered?
I agree with those saying the music grew on them since it was first revealed. As with pretty much every other aspect of the game, I'm still hoping for some more unusual stuff, but what's been shown so far is a good baseline.
If I had to guess I would say that it's an ancient Engwithan ruin with a giant chunk of adra, not a meteorite, in the middle. The architecture definitely looks more interesting than before; I like the scaly decorations on the columns.

Good discussion! I agree that the spell effects could use improvement. DOTA 2 is the way to go, IMO. The art for that game is just marvelously competent in every respect, and although PoE is going for a more subdued, realistic art style overall, it's still a good reference point for spell effects as well as for character/creature coloring.

Way back in Update #15, while the Kickstarter campaign was still in progress, the description of priests said:
It would appear that this is no longer the case, which I suppose makes sense since differentiating the priests of various gods to such a degree would be about as much work as creating a whole bunch of new classes, and $4.5 million only goes so far. But will there be any difference in the spells and abilities of different priests beyond just the effectiveness of the Holy Radiance ability?
I would really like it if either:
each priesthood had a few exclusive spells that were thematically appropriate, or
the spell list stayed the same, but each priesthood had a few spells that increased in power alongside Holy Radiance. So for example everyone would have access to fire spells like Cleansing Flame, but priests of Magran would gain a more powerful version for being good Magranites.

I think that most of the spells and abilities as they've been presented thus far seem a little bland and difficult to remember. It's probably just a presentational issue, but right now everything feels like "large glowy circle that makes this number go up a bit" vs "small glowy circle that makes that number go up a lot." On the one hand you do want things to be standardized and clearly explained to provide a fair challenge for players, but on the other hand a lot of similar, well balanced, and standardized abilities can be difficult to remember and choose between. I hope that in the final game the spell/ability descriptions, animations, and icons are all distinct and memorable enough that even the most basic spells and abilities stand out.
I think there will be more nuance. The description of Woedica for example had much more variety and subjectivity to it. But even take Eothas. In this update he's described as a simple goody two-shoes of light and benevolence, but we know that his followers established an oppressive theocracy and waged an attempted war of conquest

I like the aumaua chanter portrait. Is that an island or coastal aumaua, are they male or female, and are they one of the companions?
So far we seem to have:
Aloth - male wood elf wizard
Cadegund - female meadow human priest
Edér - male meadow human rogue
Forton - male savannah human monk
Pallegina - female godlike ocean human paladin
Sagani - female boreal dwarf ranger
? - male hearth orlan cipher
Kana Rua - ? ? aumaua chanter
That would fill all eight companion slots and give representation to all of the available races. One of the UI screens from a while back also mentioned a party member called the Devil of Caroc. Is that a title for one of the existing companions or are there more than eight?

I wonder what the Inn-specific bonuses will be like. At the stronghold, it's easy to see how electing to use the library or training grounds etc. while resting would provide different advantages, but what distinguishes rooms in an inn besides how soft the beds are and how many roaches there are? Not necessarily complaining, however. It sounds like a cool mechanic even if it ends up being really gamist.

Ha, I was right about the backing panels and embellishments being added later.
Will character-specific action bars pop up above the other UI elements, or fill up the central space that otherwise houses the non-specific actions, or some third option?

If I recall correctly, the original UI that they showed was just a photoshopped mockup, not something from in-game. They likely won't add any decorative embellishments or solid connecting material until near the end, once the size and layout of all of the UI elements have been finalized. Until then it makes sense to keep things simple and minimalist, so that changes can be made without additional or redundant work.

It's great to finally have a detailed musical update. Plenty of interesting material there.
The Dyrford sample music is decent. It definitely reminds me of Howard Shore's LOTR and Hobbit scores, though more melancholy and less memorable. Of course, the music for three hour long movies in which every action is predetermined has to be different from music for a very long game in which the player can wander around freely, but I hope there will be plenty of catchy earworm pieces in the game to go along with the subtler background music.
I would like to know more about how PoE's musical influences will be different from the Infinity Engine games, given that the setting is more Renaissance than Medieval and New World rather than strictly European. Will we see hints of opera, or its predecessor intermedio? Will there be Native American influences or elements from African spirituals and work songs?

It's a mechanic that requires zooming out and viewing from a more abstracted mindset, but it's not completely illogical. Basically, there are items that your party have specifically arranged and organized to be within reach whenever a specific party member needs them, and then there are items that have been haphazardly crammed into the bottom of whichever backpack has space at the time.

That was a fun animation reference video. Are all those people working full time on PoE, or do you rope in people working on other projects to model for you? What's a Xaurip?
The cat druid model actually looks pretty good from an isometric perspective. I'm also warming slightly to the troll model, although I still think you should tinker with the coloration when you move to the polishing phase to bring out the distinctiveness of its features. Is it wearing a human skin mask on its face?

AFAIK, they still get familiars as one of their starting abilities.
Right, I'm aware of that update, but they haven't been mentioned since then, and we already know that some of the other classes' abilities have been changed in the meantime.

It could be that instead of mainly trying to do mainstream, AAA RPGs, their development will branch into two separate directions. On the one hand you'll have anything that will keep people employed and money coming in, up to and including a Real Housewives-themed Flappy Bird clone. On the other hand you'll have very focused, niche passion projects like Pillars of Eternity. If they're able to get work on big budget RPGs they'll take that as well, but obviously they can't solely rely on that anymore.
I like what I've seen of Pillars of Eternity more than any of their previous games, so if they keep doing that kind of stuff as well I'm not too bothered by the rest. Hopefully they'll be able to get to the point where they have 3-4 Kickstarter-scale projects simultaneously in development, across a variety of settings and genres.

It would have been nice for the secret project to have been a big budget RPG, but I'm mainly interested/invested in Obsidian's Kickstarter projects anyway so I'm not too bummed out. Also, it's possible that this is still just the aftermath of their XBone project getting canceled and having to fire a bunch of people and scramble for new work. There's still hope that post-Kickstarter, post-South Park, and post-relationship-with-Paradox, they'll be able to find better, more appropriate work.
I really hope their next Kickstarter comes soon, and is more compelling than the hints that Feargus has given.

My point was that I see at least two scenarios:
Self-publishing, especially fulfillment of physical goods, is onerous and unappealing enough to Obsidian that they would rather avoid it even if there would be long term advantages to such a setup. Or they feel that their deal with Paradox will work out to be as profitable or more profitable than self-publishing even in the long term, after the point where initial hurdles and growing pains would have been cleared.
And I was wondering which was the case.

I don't care about exact percentages, and it certainly makes sense that you can't reveal them because of dealings with other companies. I am curious about whether it's a deal that Obsidian views as better even in the long run (as in you've estimated that the expense and potential lost sales of complete self-publishing outweigh the benefits) or if it's more of a short term vs long term tradeoff?